Sally Arnup was born Sally Baynton Williams in London in 1930. She was Montessori educated as a young child, and had her first experience with clay at just two years old, always remembering how good clay felt in her young, exploring hands. At thirteen, she left broader schooling and trained at Kingston Art College, taught by H Wilson Parker. She then went on to Camberwell College of Arts, and was taught by Dr Karel Vogel. A year later, Arnup studied at the Royal College of Art, where she was tutored by both Frank Dobson and John Skeaping.
Sally married fellow artist Mick Arnup in 1953. In 1955 she was the winner of Royal Society of British Sculptors' Feodora Gleichen Award for women artists; and, with the couple settling just outside York, Sally Arnup then taught as the Head of Sculpture at York College of Art, between 1958-72.
Arnup’s career spanned some seventy years, during which she became established as one of the leading figures in figurative bronze sculptures, producing work depicting the vital beauty of wildlife and sporting subjects. Her animal bronzes were often sculpted with the live animal present.
Sally Arnup’s bronzes have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Royal Society of British Artists, and with the Royal Scottish Academy and at the Paris Salon. She was also made a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. She received commissions from both the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth; for the former’s 80th birthday a bronze of his Fell pony ‘Storm’, and for the latter she produced the cast for a silver leopard, gifted to Hrh by the City of York. Consequently, Sally Arnup’s work is part of The Royal Collection, as well as being collected privately and publicly across the world.
The Arnup Studio in Holtby, where both Sally and Mick Arnup worked, can still be visited today, having been opened to the public in 2011 as part of York Open Studios.